


Purple is the Best Color

by Dr_Chalk



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Eventual Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 18:31:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12823530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dr_Chalk/pseuds/Dr_Chalk
Summary: A voice echoed within Keith’s head. He had brushed off this faint trace of a memory so many times before, even though this memory had always brought an odd sense of comfort and tranquility to his heart every time it submerged, even if this memory had turned on lamps for Keith when he was in dark rooms, as the memory had held barely any weight to him- but now, with the context of the words far more different, it hit Keith like a speeding truck that was out of control, because he finally knew why the memory had managed to soothe him when nothing else could, because the meaning of those words were far more different than he had imagined. The blurry image of a young boy repeated those words in his mind, his hair brown and his skin like chocolate milk, with eyes that the very boy had described by comparing it to a crystalline ocean-Oh.





	Purple is the Best Color

Keith wondered why he had to live in the middle of nowhere.

His father had told him that because his mother was purple, they couldn’t live near other people. Purple people should not be seen, his father told him. If Keith was old enough to know what racism was, he might have pointed out that if other people can’t accept her for being purple, then it would be their fault and not her’s. However, being only six years old, he was still blissfully oblivious to difficult vocabulary and societal issues, and he ended up nodding to his father even though he was unhappy about living in isolation. He wanted to have friends to talk to, like the ones he saw in the picture books that his father brought home sometimes from his trips to the nearby town. And so, Keith made the grand decision to make his father take him out to town no matter what.

“Dad, take me too this time!”

His father turned around to face a short and beaming Keith, his eyes glowing with childish excitement and naive anticipation, his hands locked into a tight grip around the hem of his vibrant red t-shirt. After scratching his chin a couple times locked in an inner debate, the husband went to look at his wife for an answer.

“Well, Keith isn’t the purple one, correct?” Keith’s mother smiled warmly at her son, then her husband. She was sitting on their beige couch, sipping a steaming cup of something Keith didn’t recognize. Keith was more than upset that his mother’s purple features were preventing her from joining his father and him from making this a grand family adventure, but Keith knew this wasn’t something he could change by whining. Besides, he was beyond sure that his mother was quite upset about how she could never go outside as well.

“Well, it’s settled then. Lil’ guy, you’re comin’ along with your old man today.”

Scooping Keith up with a single muscular arm, Keith’s father waved goodbye to his wife with his free hand and made his way over to a white van smudged with dry dirt, readily waiting in front of their rather shabby abode in the middle of the desert. Humming innocently, Keith opened the door and hopped in the front seat. He had grown quite a bit recently, and while he was still pitifully short in comparison to his father, he was just barely tall enough to open the car door by himself and climb in with his small feet paddling in the air while his arms struggled to bring him up.

“Oh no, little man. You are sitting in the backseat. Yer still too tiny for shotgun, y’hear?”

“But I wanted shotgun…”

“Sorry, pal. When ya grow to be as tall as your good ol’ dad, maybe.” Keith’s father said as he chuckled, watching Keith climb back to the back seats with a pouty lip.

“Are ya buckled up, kiddo?” His father called to the back. Keith stood on his knees to drag the belt down and buckle himself up, then gave him a thumbs up.

“Alright then, here we go!” The car’s engine began to purr to life, and Keith continuously shifted in his seat from excitement, the seat belt barely holding him back from jumping up and down. because Keith knew this was going to be the first and best trip of his life.

 

After an hour of the open window making his red t-shirt flutter within the car whilst driving through the middle of nowhere, the van came to a stop at a town. The town wasn’t exactly bustling, but to Keith, who had only known his father and mother before, it was a metropolis. Unbuckling immediately to free himself from his restraint, Keith jumped out of the van and marvelled at the sight of the town. There was more of everything here. More homes, more plants, more everything. There were so many things Keith had not seen before in this town, and he was breathing in all of this, because he wanted to inhale this experience wholly, not leaving out a single bit. He had only seen such things in his books. His large deep purple eyes darted from person to person, until they finally landed at a group of people all crowding at a gas station, standing next to a large olive green car hooked up to a gas hose. He looked up at his father, who was trying to haggle a merchant into selling his onions at a cheaper price, then scurried over to the group of people. They seemed to be a large family, because Keith could see a adult male and an adult female standing together, along with many children crowding around them. There was also an wrinkly woman of greying hair with them, and they all seemed to be laughing. Unsure of how to initiate a conversation, Keith kept opening his mouth, only to close it again. Before he could even say a simple hello, one of the children spun around to face him, and simply said:

“Hey!”

Unsure of what to do, Keith awkwardly nodded. The child who had greeted him was taller than him, but only by a slight amount. He was on the border of lean and skinny, and his hair that was as brown as the milk chocolate Keith’s father brought back home once. His t-shirt was a cool blue which reminded Keith of the ocean which he had seen in his books, but the boy’s wide eyes were even bluer than his books, and it threatened to overwhelm him in its depths.

“Are you travelling too?”

Flinching to attention, Keith searched his six year old brain for an answer, which sadly lacked data to piece together a coherent response.

“Uh? Uh-huh.”

The boy stared at Keith with his beady blue eyes, studying every inch and corner of his face, before he finally bursted into laughter. Keith, unsure of what to do, awkwardly laughed along, his chest moving up and down in artificial motions. The blue boy came to a stop, and giggled before extending a hand toward Keith.

“You talk funny, I like you,” He said, still giggling childishly. “I’m Lance!”

Keith had never been greeted by strangers before, and the closest thing to a friend he had were his parents. To summarize, he utterly lacked in experience when it came to socializing. Thankfully, the boy named Lance seemed to be the very paragon of a social butterfly, and was not backing out on Keith as if he was a lost cause.

“Uh, um, Keith.”

“Say what now?”

“M-my name is Keith.”

With a voice as meek and small as a snail gliding across the asphalt on a hot and dry day, Keith managed to blurt out a legitimate answer. Lance stared into Keith’s eyes for a moment, as if he was interpreting what Keith had just barely managed to give him. Then, he snapped to attention, then put his small hands on Keith’s cheeks, bringing his face closer to him.

“You have purple eyes?!”

Uh oh. Keith didn’t know that his mother wasn’t the only one who was purple. He had always thought his eyes were a murky black, but perhaps stepping outside of the house finally put his real eye color to light.

“It-it’s purple? Really?” Keith stuttered.

“Wait, you didn’t know your own eye color? That’s really weird, my mom always tells me I have the whole ocean in my eyes and that’s why it’s blue, so I know it’s blue. How can people even have purple eyes?”

From there, it only lead to more questions as Lance let his mouth run loose. Panicking that someone might hear their conversation over the topic of ‘purpleness,’ Keith took hold of Lance’s hand in a vice grip and began to run as fast as his little skinny legs could take him.

“Wh-whaaaaa? Where are we going?” Lance questioned over the wind which now crashed against their small faces.

 _Somewhere nobody can hear_ , Keith wanted to respond, but he was for sure not used to running this fast or exercising even a moderate amount that he could not spare enough of his breath for a reply. His chest heaving for oxygen, they came to a stop in a field of grass behind a row of wooden buildings with planks and sticks for roofs. Lance seemed to be used to sudden sprints; he was barely affected.

“Woah, you’re already tired?”

“I… don’t….exercise… much….” Keith huffed out broken words, still gasping for oxygen.

“I always play on the beach, you should try it too! Makes your lungs super strong!”

His nose pointing towards the air in pride, Lance continued to engage in his one-sided

conversation on how great the beach is, until he stopped abruptly.

“Oh yeah, why did we come here again?”

Lance looked back at Keith, and for the first time Keith realized that Lance was missing a tooth, which was why his words sounded choppy and the ‘th’ sound frequently replaced the ‘s’ sounds, a fact which he had also just noticed. Keith began to rub his thumb, awkward and rather nervous about answering Lance’s question, especially due to the topic which would rise due to it.

“...I didn’t want anyone to hear.”

“About wha?”

“...that my eyes are purple.”

For some reason, Lance seemed rather taken aback by this statement. Gasping in a not exactly quiet manner, he immediately lunged at Keith, taking hold of his shoulders and putting himself close to Keith.

“Ehhhh~?! But why?”

“B-because they aren’t normal! My mom and dad said it should be a secret.”

“But isn’t that super cool?”

“Eh?”

This time, Keith was the one taken by surprise. When Keith had first noticed the fact that none of the mothers in his picture books were purple, his parents had always taught him that purple was an unnatural color in regular humans, that his mother wasn’t exactly a person from Earth. He was taught that his mother’s soft purple hues were the reason why she never went outside, because no human is willing to accept anybody who is different from them, except his father. Keith had seen his mother, unable to step out even once, shivering in the middle of the night leaning against her husband. It had made Keith wary of the color purple, because even at his young age he could tell that was the source of his mother’s fearful nights. When Lance notified Keith of his purple eyes, Keith had thought that he’d be forced to stay inside forever as well, along with his mother. But now, here was Lance, telling Keith that everything was okay.

“If I could have purple eyes, I’d totally get them! But ma likes my blue eyes… so I dunno if I wanna swap ‘em out.”

“You don’t hate it?”

“Hate what?”

“...Purple.”

At this, Lance blinked in confusion, as if the very idea seemed out of this world. Raising a single eyebrow in an inquisitive manner, he pulled his face closer to Keith.

“Why in the heck would I hate a color- oops, bad word. Don’t tell my ma or pa. But really, why would I hate a color?”

“...My mom is purple, and she says nobody is gonna like her because of it…”

Lance stared right at his face, and Keith could not help but feel as if he was turning him end for end without actually making a move. Then, Lance slammed a small fist against his palm.

“Oh~ I get what you mean!” Lance exclaimed with quite a lot of pride at the fact that he had managed to relate to Keith.

“You- you do?” Keith was surprised, he didn’t think Lance would be the one to have issues with these kinds of things.

“Mhm! My family always gets super bashed for color too.”

At the mentioning of this topic, Lance seemed to lose a bit of his spirit, and Keith could not help but feel apologetic for bringing this out of him.

“Uh, um, sorry.”

“No no nope! You shouldn’t be sorry! Besides, it’s their fault for being the dumb-dumbs. Ma says people who hate different colors are dumb-dumbs! So I don’t hate purple people either! Ooh, can I meet your purple ma one day?”

Keith’s mother had told him that humans would hate her, because she was different. Keith believed ever so strongly that it was the reason why she’d cry so often at nights, with only his father there by her side to comfort her. And he knew that it was why she could never step out of the house, why she could never join him today on the trip to the town. But oh, how he wished she had came with him today, because she could have met Lance, and maybe, all her worries would melt away, just like Keith’s worries had dissipated as Lance voiced his opinion so innocently.

“I- I want you to meet her, mhm. One day.” Keith nodded fiercely, showing his overwhelming approval for this, forgetting that Lance had his face nearly stuck against his own. Their foreheads clashed, and both of them let out a small shriek as the impact shook them to the core.

“Ow- ouch! Careful, Keef!” Lance shouted.

“S-sorry- hey, wait, keef isn’t my name, it’s Keith!” Keith’s apologetic behaviour suddenly turned defensive as Lance proceeded to completely miss the target on Keith’s name.

With shaking knees and hands clutching their foreheads, the two boys fell onto the grass on their behinds, wincing at the dull pain.

“Um… Lance?”

“Yeah?”

“Did your mom and dad get married because they didn’t hate each other’s colors too?”

Lance gave himself a moment to wonder, then nodded.

“Mhm! That, and they really really liked each other!” Lance answered cheerfully, as if the very thought of his happily wedded parents brought joy to him. Keith felt his cheeks grow warm from happiness as Lance’s own joy infected him like a happy disease.

“Uhuh, mine too.” Keith replied. Gasping, Lance pointed at Keith’s face.

“You smiled!”

“Eh?”

“Just now, you smiled, for the first time!”

Touching his own face, Keith realized that he was indeed smiling. And to think he had been so stressed mere minutes ago. It was a warm sensation which had overtook him and washed his worries away in sweet honey as if they had never existed, and it was all thanks to his new and very first friend.

“Hey, we like each other right? We’re extra good amigos, right?” Lance took hold of Keith’s hand and closed their distance just like before, as if the very concept of a private bubble was unthinkable in his head.

“...What’s an amigo?” Keith tilted his head curiously.

“It means friend! Pal, buddy, chum! Are we?” Lance asked once more, his dazzling blue eyes glittering like a cascade hitting the surface of the ocean, overwhelming all onlookers.

“Uh- uhuh!” Keith nodded even more fiercely than before- Lance was his friend, an extremely good friend. A great friend, a perfect friend, even.

“And… we don’t hate each other’s colors, right? We like them, right?” The brown-haired boy questioned.

“No, I really like your color!” Keith announced with finality and absolute determination.

“Then, do you think we’re gonna get married when we grow up?”

Keith blinked, then felt a rush of pure joy within him. As far as little Keith knew, marriage was something for people who really appreciated and loved each other, and would not discriminate them no matter what. It was for people who were the best of friends, for people who were as close as they could be. And what better person was there to marry than Lance, someone who met those exact requirements? Lance was his first friend and best friend, and in the past half an hour or so he had managed to already secure a place for himself in Keith’s heart.

“Yup, we are!” Keith smiled the biggest, most heartwarming smile he had ever worn, revealing a set of baby teeth that was missing a tooth.

“Ooo, we have matching tooth-holes too! See?” Lance hooked his fingers to each side of his mouth and pulled, revealing his gap as well.

The children laughed innocently, as if all of their burdens had been lowered to the soft patch of grass which they were on; because at that very moment, they had found their confidants.

 

-~=[+]=~-

 

The door to Keith’s quarters opened as Lance made his way in, wearing an expression of slight awkwardness. Keith, curled up into a ball on his bed, glared at Lance, because he knew the topic which was about to surface. This was exactly why Keith had been avoiding the rest of the team for nearly two days now, as he was afraid of having it brought up in a conversation and locking him in an exchange he wished to be no part of.

“So, uh, you’re galra, huh.”

And there it was. He felt as if he had heard it a thousand times now. It was all so vivid within his head; Allura and Coran’s unhidden looks of terror and disgust, the expression of pure shock on Shiro’s face, Hunk’s constant questions, and Pidge subtly inching away from Keith little by little, hiding behind Hunk’s large frame. And Lance, he was no better. He had jumped back in surprise and yelped, as if Keith had somehow morphed into something else. He hated that, he hated the fact that a reaction like that had came out of Lance, of all people, because, because-

“Go away, Lance.” Far more bitterness than anticipated carried itself onto Keith’s voice, and Lance seemed slightly taken aback. Sighing, Lance scratched the back of his head, and after an awkward pause, finally began to speak again.

“Hey, listen, I just want you to know, just because you’re part-galra, it’s not like we’re gonna treat you any different. Well, at least I know I won’t.”

“...Stop lying. You’re no better than them.”

Lance looked at Keith as if he had received a punch to the gut from him, shock and pain apparent in his eyes. Then, the shock and pain dissipated from his eyes, and he proceeded to make his statement loud and clear.

“Listen, if this is about me getting all surprised and whatnot back there, of course I’d be surprised! My friend just turned out to be partially alien! But it’s not like I’m gonna discriminate you for it! Just because the fact that you are part-glara is revealed, doesn’t mean that the Keith we were with just suddenly changed into this evil guy, that’s stupid! Mullet man will always be Mullet man, and the fact that he’s purple or whatever is not gonna change that!”

This time, Keith was the one who was taken by surprise, because it almost felt as if Lance had just told him exactly what he needed to hear, what he wanted to hear. But words alone could not wash his worries away, for they were too vast, taking up a far larger portion of his own heart than he would’ve liked.

“But…”

“Ah-ah-ah, no buts, Mullet. Even if you actually start to look like galra, I’m still not going to hate you and whatever. Even becoming purple can’t hide that darn mullet of yours, you get that? Besides, I think purple’s a good color! Well, can’t be beat blue, duh, but still, I’d call it second or third best. But still, good color, mhm. Besides, hating different colors is stupid and racist.” Lance chuckled a little bit, and Keith could not help but he had heard somebody else say that before. It was a faint memory, a memory from his childhood. He remembered that he had met someone who said something similar.

_‘Ma says people who hate different colors are dumb-dumbs! So I don’t hate purple people either!’_

A voice echoed within Keith’s head. He had brushed off this faint trace of a memory so many times before, even though this memory had always brought an odd sense of comfort and tranquility to his heart every time it submerged, even if this memory had turned on lamps for Keith when he was in dark rooms, as the memory had held barely any weight to him- but now, with the context of the words far more different, it hit Keith like a speeding truck that was out of control, because he finally knew why the memory had managed to soothe him when nothing else could, because the meaning of those words were far more different than he had imagined. The blurry image of a young boy repeated those words in his mind, his hair brown and his skin like chocolate milk, with eyes that the very boy had described by comparing it to a crystalline ocean-

_Oh._

Keith sharply raised his head towards the boy, taking in every feature of Lance, from his brown hair to his chocolate milk skin and his eyes, so bright and blue like the ocean that he could dive in it -

_Oh god._

“...That was you?” With his voice suddenly a lot less hostile, Keith could not help but mutter in shock that the one responsible for creating a memory which had managed to calm the jagged waves within him even in the darkest of his times, was of all people, Lance. The very maker of this particular memory, however, stood in front of Keith, scratching the back of his head in an awkward manner, unable to understand the situation.

“I was what now?” Lance carefully replied.

“W-we met before, in a town- I don’t know, was I six or seven?”

“Dude, you’re rambling.”

“Don’t you remember? It was at some sort of grass patch, we talked, we talked about this, we talked about me being purple-” Keith’s hand was gripping at Lance’s sleeves before he knew it.

“Slow down bud, you’re going way too fast for me.”

“It was around, I don’t know, when we were six or seven? We talked about not hating each other’s colors, or something, right? I know I didn’t get the wrong person here!”

“Um, Keith, this is a really sudden- wait, hold up.”

Lance placed his hand on his chin as if he was searching the back of his head for a certain memory, plunging into a pool of echoes from the past. And suddenly, oh-so abruptly, he slammed the side of his fist into his hand, his eyes widening.

“That kid! That kid was you?” Lance exclaimed, his voice shooting up in pitch. And suddenly, his shoulders slumped, his expression turning into a more or less disappointed one.

“And he was such a sweet, adorable little kid too, why did he have to turn into someone like… Mullet?” Lance mimicked a face of pure disgust, acting as if he had stepped in a puddle of what somebody failed to clean up after walking their dog.

“Hey!” Keith frowned, crossing his arms. If he was even a bit more bothered by that comment, he might have even pouted at Lance.

“I’m joking, alright! And just one thing;” He sat down next to Keith on his bed, the sheets wrinkling under him. “You can trust me to not go all racist on you if I wasn’t that way before, right?”

Keith brought his knees to his chest, cradling them tightly.

“Yeah… I guess I can?”

“Well then, that’s settled!”

“But what about the rest of the team? Especially Allura and Coran, their entire race was wiped out because of the galra- and then there’s Pidge who doesn’t even know where her family is and it’s all the galra’s doing. And Shiro, I don’t know what happened between him and the galra in detail, but I know enough to see that it’s bad, and really bad-”

“Woah woah, simmer down. They just need some time to… adjust, okay? They’ll come around.” Lance attempted to place a hand on Keith’s shoulder, then drew back, as if he was unsure of whether or not he was allowed to do this. Then, with a determined huff, placed his hand on Keith. “I mean, you hate me the most out of the team and even I came around, so the rest of them can’t be bad, right?” Lance admitted jokingly, then laughed a little under his breath. But at this, Keith turned to look at Lance with an expression that was comprised out of mild surprise, worry, and a mixture of many more things that Lance was unable to continue his joking demeanor.

“...You thought I hate you?” Keith said, as serious as he could be.

“H-hey, don’t take it so seriously, alright? It was just a joke!” Lance dropped his head into his hands, remembering that Keith was the type of person to let jokes fly over his head even if they were screaming the answer to him. “So you… don’t… hate me?” Lance raised his eyebrows, waiting for an answer.

“Hate is a strong word, Lance.” Keith sighed, and shook his head.

Before Lance could realize what was happening, a pair of hands shot up around his body and shattered his balance, the fingers gripping at his back and pulling him towards-

“Keith?”

The black haired boy’s gloved palms were tight around Lance’s body, his arms like a lasso. Lance couldn’t say he hated this; the shared warmth radiating between them, Keith’s arms hugging him tight to the gap between his neck and shoulder, it was all far from unpleasant.

“...First of all, I don’t hate you.” Keith said in a half whisper, his mullet tickling Lance’s cheek.

“...Okay?”

“Second of all, I’m still worried, alright? I mean, did you see their faces? They hate me. I’m pretty sure they think I’m some rabid zoo animal. Just an ‘it’s okay’ from you is not going to prove it’s really going to be okay.”

Lance’s blue eyes seemed to dim slightly as anything light hearted about this situation proceeded to disappear. He did not know what words would comfort Keith; if anything, he was afraid his words would rile up the shivering boy even more. So he wrapped his own arms around Keith, and patted his back gently as if to soothe an uneasy child, like he used to do with his younger siblings. And each time Lance’s hands made contact with Keith’s back, the stress and the fear from these past few days seemed to be urged outside. He had cried alone in his room so many times, and the moment Lance had stepped into his room Keith had sworn not to show his crying face, because he was not willing to damage his own pride. However, with Lance coaxing everything out of him, tears started to flow as if that promise was never made, because even with such meek, gentle touches, Lance had broken down an entire dam. The one responsible however, flinched at the sight of Keith’s silent tears, as if he did not expect it at all.

“Oh- oh geez, should I let go?”

At this, Keith gripped Lance even tighter, because them parting was the last thing he wanted right now. No, it wasn’t the last thing he wanted- it was never on the list to begin with. He was clinging to Lance for dear life, and Lance gave an awkward sigh before resuming his task of patting Keith comfortingly. The red paladin was here, shivering in his arms, letting out silent tears, but never another noise. He dared not to sob, and Lance perfectly understood. Because if Keith was crying in front of other people, he’d for sure not want to show weakness, and it pained Lance like a stab to the heart to imagine how much Keith would’ve cried the past two days while nobody watched him, if Keith was crying this much even in front of a person, and in front of him, of all people. Keith could not understand himself why he was letting all of this unfold, but the mere thought that this person, that Lance, had already accepted him for what he was before simply gave him a surge of emotion he could not suppress, because the hopes of mending his connection with the other paladins were coming back to him.

“Thanks… Lance.” Keith muttered into Lance’s blue and white shirt.

“Uh- um, no prob!” Lance’s cheeks flushed with color- it wasn’t every day he heard Keith thank him, of all things. Keith looked up into Lance’s eyes to make contact with his own, his dark purple eyes still glistening with liquid. Keith gave an awkward smile, then proceeded to pull himself up from his own mattress. He stood still as if contemplating a highly important decision, then suddenly turned around and placed his lips on Lance’s forehead.

_Wait what?_

With remarkable speed Keith dashed out of his quarters, leaving Lance alone and dazed in a room that wasn’t his.

_Wait what._

Keith heard a loud scream as he bolted through the hallways with no destination in mind, his face about as red as his own jacket.

**Author's Note:**

> 'What if Lance and Keith met as children' was the single question that made me write this thing, I haven't written legitimate fanfiction since my birth so please have mercy


End file.
